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Title: Alley ways
Author: Helen R. Hull
Illustrator: Edna L. Crompton
Release date: July 28, 2026 [eBook #79202]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The Century Co., 1918
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79202
Credits: Jens Sadowski. This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALLEY WAYS ***
Alley Ways
Helen R. Hull
Author of “The Fire”
Illustrations by Edna L. Crompton
The Century Magazine, vol. 95, Feb. 1918, pp. 561-571.
Cynthia hurried between the sheeted counters toward the door. She had
lingered so long that the other clerks had gone, and Mr. Bell himself
stood, just shaking off his managerial airs, in final directions to the
basement man. He unlatched the door for Cynthia, who slipped past him
with a grave good night. Within her gravity, though, hung streamers of
delight; she was proud of Mr. Bell’s black-haired suaveness, proud of it
as something belonging to her, since he managed the store where she
clerked; she delighted in her own importance in being thus let out of
the secretive, closed shop. She glanced down the street to see whether
any one had noticed her emergence. At the sight of a girl loitering
before the windows a few stores ahead she shivered, a forbidden streamer
fluttering out. Queenie wouldn’t take a hint, then. Cynthia walked
slowly toward her, framing bits of self-defense. She had waited as long
as she could; Queenie should have been blocks ahead of her. Instead,
there she was, dropping into step beside her, a sick furtiveness
glinting in wide, blue eyes.
“If you’re tryin’ to shake me, say so.”
“Don’t be a silly!” exclaimed Cynthia, and the relief that chased off
the furtiveness in Queenie’s face banished her own faint resolve. She
couldn’t strike at her brutally, as her mother had demanded.
“Was it Bell kept you? You’re awful’ late.”
“No. I—I couldn’t come earlier.”
They swung off the main street, Queenie struggling to keep step.
“If you tried to shake me now, after all I told you,—” her plaintive
voice came over Cynthia’s shoulder,—“I don’ know what I’d do.”
“Has anything happened?”
“Say, you don’t need to run home, do you?” She plucked at Cynthia’s arm,
and with a little laugh Cynthia slackened her stride.
“Nothing’s happened, Queenie?” she repeated.
“I saw him.”
“Queenie! Again! Where?”
“This noon. He was waiting—down near the river.”
“What did you do?”
“I acted like I didn’t see him; and then—I tried to run; and then I got
home somehow.”
“You didn’t talk to him?”
Queenie shook her head, her eyes staring into Cynthia’s in dogged
appeal.
“Good for you! O Queenie, good for you!” Cynthia’s cheeks flushed.
“Well, you said you’d help me if I didn’t talk to him.”
“And you said you couldn’t help it; and now you’ve proved you could.”
Cynthia’s voice rang out in young triumph.
“I was afraid he’d wait for me to-night.” Queenie glanced at the
warehouses they were passing. “He turns me all to water. You don’t
know.”
“I knew, if you wanted to do it, you could.” Cynthia nodded wisely at
Queenie. She glowed with her triumph; she had projected her own strength
into this girl. “I’ll walk down your street with you, and then if he
comes—” She ended with a note of scorn.
“I keep thinking it’s him I see.”
“Don’t think about him. He isn’t worth it.”
“He ain’t worse ’n most men.”
“But if you think about other things—”
“What things?” Queenie’s full lips twitched. “You can pretend you ain’t
thinking about it, but it’s right there.” She seized Cynthia’s arm, a
curious gurgle in her throat. “See! Is that him?” She pulled Cynthia to
a stop in front of a little drug-store, peering in between the red and
blue bottles.
“Don’t stop and stare!” Cynthia jerked her along.
“’T wasn’t.” Queenie turned her face slowly back to Cynthia. Little
blotches of color showed under the soft, pale cheeks. She clung to
Cynthia’s arm, pressing it against her body. “Oh, I don’ know how to
bear it!”
A strange tremor moved through Cynthia. She dragged her arm free.
“Don’t act so here on the street,” she said gently. “Some one will
notice you.”
They were almost to the river. A wagon passed them, the pitch of its
rumble changing hollowly as it came to the wooden bridge.
“You see,” Cynthia went on as the girls reached the bridge, “it is
wicked to feel like that, now you know he has a wife.” Queenie’s emotion
was strange wine on her lips, dizzying her.
“I didn’t know that when I got to loving him.” Queenie stared down at
the muddy, sluggish current.
Cynthia grew stern.
“You do know now,” she said; “so you must stop.”
A group of workmen straggled past them, one of them grinning, teeth
white in the grime and tan of his face.
“From the yards,” said Queenie, pointing to the tracks across the river.
“You aren’t listening.”
“Oh, I hear you. But what am I going to do?” Queenie clung to the rail.
“Sometimes—” she flung up her hand—“I think I’ll jump in. Living so
handy to the river, I think of it.”
“Nonsense!” Cynthia drew her again into a slow walk. “Don’t you talk
that way. You’ve got a job, and there are lots of things for you to do.”
“Job! It’s all right for you to talk, coming in for two weeks of the
sale. How’d you like selling notions all the time? ‘Yes, ’m, these are
five cents. No; them are ten.’ Fine way to live, ain’t it!”
“I think it’s fun.”
“You got something else ahead. Would you stay doing it?”
“Well,”—Cynthia hesitated,—“the family wouldn’t let me. It was all I
could do to make them let me do it these two weeks. But I think I’d like
it. You could get to be head of a department.”
“Get laid off for the dull season!”
They had reached the end of the bridge, and Cynthia stopped impatiently.
Queenie’s apathy roiled the clear water of her wisdom—a lip wisdom that
she echoed unquestioningly.
“If you won’t make any effort yourself!” she cried. Queenie sucked in
the corners of her mouth; an incongruous dimple flickered in one cheek.
Her huge sailor-hat had slipped back, and her fair hair lay in moist
curls around her forehead and ears. She looked almost like a baby,
thought Cynthia, pityingly, so that she hurried on. “But of course you
want to. Now let’s think. If you don’t like the store, why not try
something else?”
Queenie shook her head.
“I set out to be a private secret’ry, but I didn’t have the mem’ry. I
saved up, and took a course, but I couldn’t learn it.”
“Well,”—Cynthia walked on,—“there must be something. I’ll think about
it.”
They came to an alley squeezing between old sheds.
“Would you—” Queenie hesitated—“would you have time to come down a piece
with me?”
The two stepped into the dingy passage, Queenie shrinking close to
Cynthia.
“I always feel he might step out the other side of this.”
There was nothing beyond the sheds, though, but a mud path close along
the river, with a cluster of shacks.
“Third one’s where I live,” said Queenie, defiantly. “’T ain’t much and
it’s full of kids. You better go back now.” She clutched at Cynthia’s
arm. “You won’t shake me, will you? Just feelin’ there’s somebody knows,
gives me more spunk.”
[Illustration: “SHE CLUTCHED AT CYNTHIA’S ARM. ‘YOU WON’T SHAKE ME, WILL
YOU? JUST FEELIN’ THERE’S SOMEBODY KNOWS, GIVES ME MORE SPUNK’”]
“Of course not. I’ll help you, Queenie.” Cynthia flung up her head, her
voice vibrating in her throat. The squalor of the houses by the river,
the strange, dirty alley, this soft, trembling Queenie—all became an
entrancing mystery lying in her hands for her to shape. “Good night,”
she whispered. “I’ll see you to-morrow.”
She ran back through the alley, half expecting to be halted by a
stranger, by him, perhaps.
As, breathless, she reached the street she heard a loud “Cynthia!” and
there was her father pulling up his horse. She climbed in beside him,
her “Hello, Father!” as nonchalant as her quick breath permitted.
Confusion whirled within her for a moment, and then quieted enough to be
recognized as despair. What were all her defenses, now that she had been
seen coming out of the alley itself?
“Little late, aren’t you?” her father asked.
“Why, not much.”
“Your mother asked me to pick you up.”
In the pause that followed, Cynthia set her chin, her eyes on the
smooth, rapid motion of Daffy’s flanks. She wouldn’t say a thing. He
could go ahead, if he had to. After a moment he did, casually.
“What’s so attractive about that girl, Cynthy?”
“I tried to get rid of her to-night—” At her father’s glance a flush
prickled in her eyelids, and she went on: “I did. I waited until the
store was locked up. She was still hanging around. She begged me to go
down the alley.”
“Well,”—he touched up the horse,—“you’ve had enough of the store. Your
mother needs you around the house.”
A lurch of the road-cart threw Cynthia against her father, and she saw,
incredulously, the lines down his lean cheeks deepen. He wasn’t joking.
He had swung over to the other side, then. She had lost her amused ally.
“But, Father, the sale lasts all this week. I can’t stop.”
“Bell’s won’t go out of business. If you won’t play fair, you can’t do
what you want to.”
“It isn’t playing fair to go back on somebody that needs you.”
Her father looked around at her.
“You can’t do that girl any good. She’s a poor lot. Your mother told you
to drop her. That’s all there is to it.”
He turned the horse under the elm-trees of the drive, and walked her in
silence to the steps of the house. There he waited for Cynthia to get
out. She stood for an instant by the wheel, her eyes entreating him. But
with a flick of the lines he said:
“I’ll just tell your mother you aren’t going to work any more,” and
Cynthia, lagging up the steps, knew bitterly he meant that as a
concession, the only one he could make her.
Supper was ready; she could hear her mother moving about the kitchen.
“I’ll be right down,” she called halfway up the stairs.
As she splashed her eyes with cold water she pressed her fingers against
them, so that the blood in the tips pounded on the eyeballs.
“Oh, I hate them!” she thought. “I won’t go down!”
Then Robert called shrilly:
“Cynthy! Supper!” and she went slowly down to the dining-room.
Through the desultory supper-talk she was aware of her mother’s gaze
drifting about her, retreating if she looked up restively. Robert,
eyeing her over his bread and butter, announced between bites:
“Huh, Cyn looks sick of her job.”
“I am not!” Cynthia flashed at him, and winced as her mother replied:
“Hush, Robert! Cynthia is tired.”
Later, in a dark corner of the porch, Cynthia looked into her black
mood. It was all distorted images of herself: the self Mr. Bell would
think her for “quitting her job,” when she had said she could work two
weeks; the self he would think her if he learned that she was being
dragged away like a baby; the self—this all a shattered image—that
Queenie would think her when she failed to appear in the morning, failed
to keep that promise to stand by her. Gone were the bright images she
loved of herself as a person of independence, as a superior saleswoman,
and, brightest of all, sharpest, as a wise benefactor. Within the house
voices droned, her father and mother talking. A little impotent rage
blew through her, blurring the distorted images into a microcosm of
humiliation. The screen-door opened, and Cynthia, at the sight of her
mother’s figure, large in the dusk, drew back into her corner, a hard
shell closing to about her heart.
“Cynthia?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, there you are.” She settled into a chair near Cynthia, rocking
leisurely. “Your father says you aren’t going to the store any more.”
Cynthia’s shell strained together.
“You haven’t been yourself since you were there. It’s too hard work.”
“Other girls do it,” cried Cynthia.
“They have to. You don’t.”
There was a silence, in which Cynthia felt tiny flames of antagonism
lick out from her contracted heart. Then her mother spoke again in the
tone of one offering diversion to a sulky child.
“Rachel Meredith came in this afternoon. She said her dresses had come
home. Why don’t you go over now to see them, if you aren’t too tired?
You won’t have much more chance to see Rachel.”
Cynthia stirred in her chair. She did want to see Rachel. She wanted to
refuse her mother’s suggestion, but after a moment of perversity she
knew she wished more to see Rachel.
“I might go over,” she admitted.
“Don’t stay too late, although you won’t need to get up early
to-morrow.”
Until she was out of sight of the house Cynthia walked slowly; then she
quickened her steps until she was almost running. The huge elms gathered
the night in pools under their branches; waves of light ran out from the
windows she passed, breaking into curious white foam on rosebushes or
dropping on smooth, pale lawns. The self of humiliation drifted away
from her. Rachel would help her, would know what to do for Queenie. The
thought of Rachel sang through her—tall, sweet Rachel, with white,
light-touching hands.
She crept noiselessly across the grass to the side of the Meredith
house. The French windows stood open to the screened porch, and just
within one of them Rachel sat reading. Cynthia caught her breath in a
second of hushed adoration; mystery lay about Rachel, like the soft
light on her dark hair and graceful neck. To-night and to-morrow she
could sit there reading; then she would be gone, changed. The thought of
the strange man who was to come Friday to marry Rachel stirred in
Cynthia jealous wonder. She wanted Rachel to look up, to see her
standing there. Suddenly, with the breath of some warm night scent,
Queenie seemed to press against her, quivering, imploring—Queenie in
love, too. Her image dimmed the mystery about Rachel, and Cynthia moved
impatiently away from such disloyalty. At the sound Rachel glanced up,
and, with a soft “Cynthia!” came out to the edge of the veranda.
“Don’t stand there staring, little moth!” she laughed. “Come in!”
Her voice was a warm rain of confusion falling deliciously upon Cynthia.
She stumbled on the step, and then Rachel drew her inside the screens,
laying an arm about her shoulders, and led her up the broad stairway to
her own room. There was mystery here, too, in the disorder of the quiet,
spacious chamber, in half-filled trunks, and piles of soft colors and
textures on low chairs. Two nights more, and the beautiful disorder
would be gone.
“Sit here, child.” Rachel pushed to the floor a mass of tissue-paper,
and Cynthia crouched on a corner of the couch.
“They must all be packed to-morrow, and I knew you’d wish to see them.”
Cynthia watched mutely, her eyes on the slender hands which caressed the
fabrics, shaking out folds of silk, touching bits of embroidery. Rachel
slipped her arms into a bright mandarin coat, and wheeled in front of
Cynthia. Incongruously, Queenie seemed to fling up her hands there,
clumsy, short-fingered. Rachel, turning back to Cynthia, paused.
“What is it?” she asked.
The coat dropped from her shoulders, and she stepped near the couch.
Cynthia shook her head; Queenie had no place here.
“I believe you’d like me not to be married, little dumb thing!” Rachel
touched Cynthia’s cheek with cool fingers. “Is that it?”
“Oh, no; no!”
“Want to be rid of me, eh?”
“Rachel!” At Rachel’s laugh Cynthia flushed. Perhaps Rachel guessed how
she reveled in the exotic pain of losing her.
“There, I won’t torment you. Come, we’ll go out on the porch. This is
all, except loads of silver. Mother can show you that, if you like,
afterward.”
On the veranda again, Rachel sank into her hammock, and bade Cynthia
pull her chair close.
“Now,” she said lazily, “tell me what you’ve done to-day.”
“I can’t go back to the store.” Cynthia plucked at the fringe of the
hammock. “Father saw me—coming out the alley where Queenie lives. She’s
that girl, you know.”
“I thought you decided last night to avoid her.”
Cynthia drew her hand hastily away.
“She—needs somebody,” she protested.
“O Cynthia,” Rachel’s voice rallied her, “your heart’s too great for the
world. That little alley girl doesn’t need my Cynthia.”
“But I can help her.”
“Cynthia dear, Lottie used to live down there near the river. I asked
her if she knew these McQuades.”
“Well.” Cynthia was hostile. Whatever that hired girl knew did not
matter.
“This Queenie has a bad name. Her mother can do nothing with her.”
“It’s a stepmother. And, Rachel, she wants to—to do what’s right. I
know.”
Rachel reached for Cynthia’s hand, held it in her cool, firm grasp.
“It’s you that’s good, dear. You can’t understand yet. You can’t alter
mud. You just get smirched yourself.”
Cynthia held herself rigid against the sweet thrill of Rachel’s touch.
“But suppose—you fell in love,”—she sought for tangible form to give her
confused thoughts,—“and then—he was married. Wouldn’t it be hard?”
“Cynthia,” said Rachel, releasing her hand, “you are an absurd child. If
the girl were decent, she wouldn’t be in love with a married man.”
For a shivering moment Cynthia sat silent. Bending over a deep, lovely
pool to touch it, she had found it polished glass. Then Rachel, with a
sudden movement, drew her out of her chair to her knees by the hammock.
The bewildering sweetness of Rachel’s arms around her, of Rachel’s
throat against her hot cheek, sent that moment scuttling away, an ugly
spider, to some remote corner of her being. She needn’t know it was
there. With a little sob she relaxed into the fragrant darkness.
“Don’t think about it.” Rachel’s lips brushed her ear. “We have so few
hours left. You are worn out—that horrid store!”
Think? She could think of nothing with Rachel lavishing light hands
about her. Cynthia, sitting by the swaying hammock, felt the mystery
creep about her, too. Rachel was so rich in love she could pour it out
until the swimming joy became pain within you.
When Cynthia came slowly up the walk to her own house, voices on the
porch ceased, and the red star of her father’s cigar glowed out.
“Yes, the things were very nice,” she said in a vague way, moving on
toward the door.
“Going to bed?”
“Yes. Good night.”
Later, lying in bed, she heard that interrupted talk picked up again.
She was too drowsy to care. With her mind full of the drifting images at
the border of sleep, she was sinking, sinking, when, unguarded, out
scuttled the horrid spider of doubt, rousing her to full wakefulness.
Her mother and Rachel had talked that very day. Rachel had connived with
her mother. There was surely something wrong in such easeful dispensing
with Queenie. But Rachel’s good-night kiss was there on her lips,
seducing her to languor, and she slept.
The next morning she bent to household tasks with eager humility. She
was unconsciously trying to force herself back to an old order of
things, as though only thus could she be sure of loyalty to Rachel, of
matter-of-fact tranquility at home. Her father was to stop at Bell’s to
say she wouldn’t be down. Who would be given her counter? And
Queenie—she saw her fumble with the cord of a parcel, count change into
some customer’s outstretched hand, always with her eyes toward the door,
watching for her. At her mother’s approach her thoughts would scatter, a
swarm of flies driven from a bit of refuse, to gather black as soon as
she was left alone.
Toward noon she put on her hat and sought out her mother.
“I’m going after my money,” she said stubbornly. “Mr. Bell might not be
in this afternoon.”
Her mother lifted her eyes from the white stuff she was sewing. For a
second her needle continued its little pricking sound along a seam.
“I wanted you to try on this skirt,” she suggested. “You want it for
Rachel’s wedding, don’t you?”
“I’ll be right back.” Cynthia fled.
The street was hot and still. The shadows huddled close about the trees,
and the sweetish odor of tar swam in the glare. Cynthia’s hurrying body
sucked in the heat, grew heavy with it; but the discomfort gave her a
dim relief. When she came at last to the bridge she stopped, peering off
at the gray huddle of shacks. A breath from the river touched her moist
forehead, and she looked down at the water, above which hung a wavering
glow like molten air. Then she went on more slowly until she stopped
again inside the doors of Bell’s store.
It seemed dark and cool after the street, the aisles stretching back
empty, interminable. She made her way between the counters, a dull sense
of severance moving in her. The woman behind the silks nodded to her;
she could see Mr. Bell’s sleek head over the office partition.
Some one seized her arm. Queenie, with reproachful, swollen eyelids,
made a grimace of caution toward the office, and drew Cynthia into the
shelter of the tall thread-cases.
“I thought you wasn’t ever coming.”
“I can’t work any more.”
Queenie’s lips twitched in her pallid face.
“Has a bad name.” Cynthia seemed to hear Rachel’s low voice. Poor
Queenie! She looked as if she had melted a little and sagged down.
“Why not?” Queenie thrust her face close. “Is it—me? They won’t have you
seeing me?”
“They think the work’s too hard.” Cynthia’s quick words fell back from
Queenie’s grin of contempt.
“Oh, I know; I ain’t such a fool. You’re too good.” She leaned heavily
on the counter, her eyelids growing redder. “Well, Bell’s kicked me out,
too. ‘Won’t need your services, Miss McQuade, after to-night.’ They’s
just two things left.” She broke off at the approach of a customer, who
looked curiously at the two girls, fingered some ribbons, and trailed
on. Cynthia waited tensely. “One’s the river, th’ other’s him. Anyhow,
he wants me.”
“I’ll ask Mr. Bell.” Cynthia’s fingers clenched into Queenie’s arm.
“When he knows I’m going to leave—”
Queenie’s pale eyes hung on Cynthia’s an instant.
“Oh, you needn’t bother.” She edged away.
Had she felt that echoing speech—“You can’t alter mud”? Cynthia drooped.
Her power had run out of her; she had somehow lost her grip on Queenie.
With a shrug Queenie tucked her blouse into her tight belt, and
presented herself to the customer who had drifted back.
[Illustration: “‘MR. BELL, THERE’S SOMETHING I WANTED TO ASK YOU....
COULDN’T YOU KEEP QUEENIE McQUADE ON?’”]
After an irresolute moment Cynthia made a rush toward the office.
Awkward, aware of the dust on her shoes, she seated herself by Mr.
Bell’s desk. He looked up from his papers.
“Yes, Miss Bates?”
“I just came for my salary, Mr. Bell.”
“Oh, yes. Your father stopped in this morning. So you’ve had enough of
salesmanship?” He smiled, and Cynthia saw him changed to the Mr. Bell of
church socials, his authority dropping away.
“They think so,” she confided.
“Next time you want a job,”—he pulled open a drawer,—“I’ll give you a
recommendation.” He counted out three half-dollars. “Up to last night,
wasn’t it?”
Cynthia drew her finger along the edge of the desk. Into her manner came
an alloy of flattery. Instinctively, to gain her request, she sought to
please his suave maleness.
“Mr. Bell, there’s something I wanted to ask you.” Her breath fluttered.
“As long as I have to—resign,”—she offered that phrase as a small jest,
and at his smile hastened on,—“couldn’t you keep Queenie McQuade on? She
needs work, oh, very much! She’ll do her best.”
Mr. Bell’s smile was swallowed up in a return of his manager air.
“She’s not an efficient clerk,” he said shortly. He dropped the three
coins into Cynthia’s lap, and as she gathered them into her hand, added:
“I’m sorry she’s presumed upon your being in the store. I told your
father and Miss Meredith this morning I regretted it. We don’t mean to
hire such girls.”
Cynthia shrank away from the curiosity under his heavy eyebrows.
“They spoke to you—father and Rachel Meredith?”
“Just a word.”
Cynthia stumbled to her feet.
“She must have work. She hasn’t done anything.” Did she say the words or
only attempt them?
“Don’t you bother your pretty head about her, Miss Bates. You can see it
isn’t fair to our patrons or our other clerks.”
Then with a little nod he had dismissed her. Her furtive glance as she
hurried from the store disclosed no glimpse of Queenie. Ducking across
the street, she stopped in the shelter of the wooden Indian in front of
the tobacco shop. No Queenie stalking her. Slowly she walked on in the
swimming heat, the world and her own inner self swooning in a sort of
suspended life.
When she dragged herself into the house, the glistening pallor of her
face brought a sharp order from her mother.
“You lie down. I shouldn’t have let you traipse down-town in this heat.
This is the last bit of your foolishness.”
She lay on the couch in the library. The shrill of locusts outside and
the clatter of dishes in the dining-room seemed remote and unreal.
Doubling down the crooked ways of sleep, she sought for Queenie, while
something formless and horrible pursued her. Its tentacles reached for
her at her very heels. She tried to scream. It clutched her shoulder,
and she wrenched herself free of dream and sleep, to find her mother
looking down at her.
“You’d better have some lunch, Cynthia. It’s late.”
The rest of that day Cynthia gave herself with wistful docility to her
mother’s suggestions. She stood before the mirror while her mother knelt
to adjust the folds of the white dress, a tall, thin girl with drooping
shoulders.
“There, that’s the best I can do.” Her mother rose stiffly. “You don’t
seem to like it.”
“Yes, I do, Mother. It’s pretty.” Cynthia let the dress slide to the
floor and stepped out of the white pile, a flush touching her cheeks.
She felt the somber weight of ingratitude that her mother should kneel
there, working for her, while she had no joy even in the dress.
“If you’d just fill out a little—” Her mother’s eyes were on her
shoulders. “After the wedding you’ve got to rest up. You’re like a
rail.”
Cynthia drew her gingham dress hastily over her head.
After supper, to Robert’s glee, she offered to play checkers. Something
inside her lay numb, with faint pricklings, like a cramped foot. As she
bent over the black and yellow squares she heard her mother say:
“After the excitement of the wedding she’ll be all right.”
Rachel’s lover had come that afternoon. Cynthia was full of fierce
relief that there was no chance of seeing Rachel again.
But at last she walked slowly, in order that she might not grow warm and
red, under the elms and up the path to the Meredith house. Mrs. Meredith
herself opened the door. Unexpectedly she kissed Cynthia, sighing, “Your
turn some day soon.” For the first time Cynthia saw her as Rachel faded
and hardened by the years. She led Cynthia into the parlor, heavy with
the sweetness of many roses. Cynthia was the only outsider. She sank
into a chair, pulling her feet close to the rockers; Rachel’s aunt, in
stiff gray silk, her father, florid and strident, the minister in formal
black, regarded her solemnly, almost hostilely. Then, after a long
moment, Rachel stood between the curtains. Her eyes sought Cynthia’s
over the great cluster of roses in her arms, caressed her swiftly, and
lifted to the man beside her. Back flooded the beautiful mystery, and
Cynthia abandoned herself to it. She scarcely saw the man, after one
glance at his blond head over Rachel’s. She saw only Rachel’s face, the
rise and fall of the lace at her breast. Incredibly soon it was over;
Rachel lifted her face to the man, and a jealous ecstasy racked Cynthia
at their grave kiss. Rachel turned to her people, laughing; her arms
held Cynthia for an instant.
Presently the machine whirled up to the door, and in a flash Rachel was
gone, slim, tailored, beside the straight, proud figure of her husband.
Cynthia started slowly toward home, Rachel’s roses filling her arms,
their fragrance swimming up in the heat. Insidiously another odor mixed
with theirs, until, with a shiver, Cynthia halted. Stripped quivering
from her, naked, rose the hidden impulse. She must see Queenie. Unless
she did, she couldn’t endure this beauty. It wasn’t fair. Forgetting the
heat, shaking away the little thought of her mother waiting to hear
about the wedding, she turned down the long street to the river.
Even at the entrance to the alley she did not hesitate. The third house,
Queenie had said. It stood nearer the river than the others, down a
sloping bank. Cynthia walked straight to the door, the roses drooping
against her dress. Scraggly hens scurried off the doorstep. Inside, at
her knock, came a scuffling sound, a smart slap, followed by a child’s
cry. The door opened, and a woman, wiping reddened arms on her drab
wrapper, faced her.
“How do you do?” Cynthia peered past her into a room full of the sour
smell of wash-water. “I’m Cynthia Bates.” She tried to smile against the
woman’s grim stare. “Is—is Queenie here?”
“What you want of her?”
Cynthia shrank back, her roses and white dress suddenly strident with
mockery. The woman snatched at a buzzing fly, and shook her skirts clear
of the clutching child who had crept to her feet. He pursed his dirty
little mouth for a cry, and she jerked him into her arms.
“What you want?” she repeated.
“I knew her in the store.”
“Oh, you’re that one! Well, she ain’t here.”
“Is she working somewhere?”
“Working! Her! Folks won’t keep her. Expectin’ us to feed her—a grown
woman.”
The woman returned to her tubs, setting the child on a chair. Cynthia
saw round eyes, pale like Queenie’s, staring at her from behind the
tubs.
“She isn’t here?” she persisted.
“I don’t know where she is, and, what’s more, I don’t want to.” The
woman broke into irritated volubility. “I says to her, if you can’t
work, you needn’t eat. Crazy about the fellows she was, wanting to dress
up fine and run with ’em. I stood it till she mixed up with a married
man; then I says, ‘this is enough of you.’”
“Where did she go?” Cynthia asked slowly.
“She ain’t been here since yesterday morning. She needn’t show her face
here again.”
Cynthia climbed the slope, the roses slipping from her arms. She glanced
back once. The baby had crept to the step, and sat gravely pulling the
red petals from one of them. She felt curious eyes nibble at her from
the other shacks.
As she entered the alley, she looked back at the river, catching a sob
at the sight of a bit of white. Only a paper sluggishly drifting; not
Queenie’s round, pleading face.
In the alley the air hung stagnant, rotting with the old buildings.
Queenie was gone, Rachel was gone. She came out to the glare of the
street, and after a second’s pause went on to the bridge. Leaning on the
railing, she forced her eyes back to the squalid shore. For the first
time she saw it without a hovering vision of herself as ministering
angel. There it lay. Somewhere else Rachel was hurried off to shining
happiness. And Queenie—
A grinding moment, and stark and undisguised that dormant thing within
her stood up. They had done it, Rachel and the rest—pushed Queenie back
into her mud. Under goodness lay that festering.
She would confront them with that terrible accusation. Her head high,
she started swiftly toward her home. Presently her steps lagged again.
The hard brilliance of her judgment dimmed. They would only repeat the
things they had said. She could hear her mother’s scorn. With her white
skirts swinging limply about her ankles she came to the quiet,
comfortable houses, in one of which she lived. A strange aloofness
filled her. If she tried to tell them, her father and her mother, they
would drag her back, shut her in safely, keep her cabined, _good_. She
would keep silent.
She came to the steps of the house, a pale light in her tired face. Her
quest had begun, secret, bewildering.
Transcriber’s Notes
Transcribed from the first publication in: The Century Magazine, vol.
95, Feb. 1918, pp. 561-571.
The original spelling and punctuation were mostly preserved. Minor
typesetting mistakes were silently corrected. All other changes
(before/after) are listed here:
[p. 564]:
... became an enhancing mystery lying in ...
... became an entrancing mystery lying in ...
[p. 569]:
... you trapes down-town in this heat. This ...
... you traipse down-town in this heat. This ...
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